L.S. Lowry | Biography (1887-1976) (Laurence Stephen Lowry) Biography 1 8 8 7 - 1 9 7 6 Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Rusholme, Manchester, in November 1887, the only child of Irish-born R S Lowry and Elizabeth Lowry (n�e Hobson). He attended a local school in Victoria Park, but took private lessons from William Fitz, before starting work as a clerk for a firm of chartered accountants in 1904 ... more Jan. 17: Added extensive scans and review of L.S. Lowry: A Biography Paperback (1999) Feb. 15: Details and scans added of the Lowry Tate Britain exhibition poster now no longer made. 1 new and sealed one in stock. View here Sept. 13: Details and scans of the Lowry Tate Britain exhibition. View smartphone page here Sept. 13: Scanned an adorable Lowry on general display at Tate Britain. View smartphone page here with amazing paintings from other artist Review. OIL (1925) © ESTATE OF L.S.

LOWRY From 1905-1915 he attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art (later Manchester College of Art, and now part of Manchester Metropolitan University), where he was tutored by Adolphe Valette. Lowry moved to Pendlebury in Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. During this time he attended art classes at Salford School of Art, developing an interest in the urban and industrial landscape. He exhibited with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1919, as well as entering paintings in the Paris Salon By the early 1930s he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. He was awarded an honorary MA at Manchester University in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. He lived in Mottram until he died in 1976 - a death marked by unprecedented homage by the 'ordinary people' of Manchester. L.S.

Lowry is unquestionably one of the most celebrated British artists and his unique contribution to recording the period, culture and landscape of industrial Salford and Manchester is without parallel. His work is a most distinctive and comprehensive record of the pre and post World War Two northern industrial town. Many people associate Lowry with �matchstick men�, but he is known to have produced over 10,000 works, ranging from finished oil paintings to hastily drawn sketches. The local industrial scene was his most frequent subject but he also painted seascapes and portraits. He was a great humorist and had intense insight into human nature, characterising it without sentiment. Later in his life he concentrated on producing paintings of figures either singly or in groups, invariably against a white background. He also produced thousand of pencil drawings during his lifetime, these are now very collectable and the best ones are incredibly detailed Lowry died without a registered doctor, leading the galleries a merry dance. Hoping to inherit a few paintings in his will, they courted him in his old age only to find he had left them all to a girl, also called Lowry, who had written him a letter years before, asking how she could become an artist.

Lowry's status as one of the major British artists of the 20th Century was reinforced when the painting Going To The Match was sold at Auction for a record �1.9 million to the Manchester-based Professional Footballers Association. Manchester's premier gallery, The Lowry Centre in Salford Quays, now holds a major collection of his work. BIOG. II Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Manchester in November 1887, the only child of Irish-born parents. From 1905-1915 L.S. Lowry attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art. He moved to Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. During this time he attended art classes at Salford School of Art, developing an interest in the urban and industrial landscape. Laurence Stephen Lowry exhibited with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1919. He exhibited at and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. L.S.

Lowry is unquestionably one of the most celebrated British artists and his unique contribution to recording the period, culture and landscape of the industrial north is without parallel Among his collectors and admirers is the actor Albert Finney. He grew up in the area and knew the landscapes Lowry painted. TRIVIA Lowry died just a few months before a major exhibition of his work was held at London's Royal Academy. It drew more than 350,000 visitors, breaking all Academy's records. In 1968 he was offered a knighthood but turned it down. He bought paintings by Honore Daumier and Lucian Freud among others, and by Rossetti. The Barbican exhibition in 1988 exhibited some of the deeply private, erotically tinted images that will be seem in the ITV1 documentary Perspectives: Looking For Lowry on Easter Sunday 2011. The documentary will also feature an interview with Carol Ann Lowry. Though not related, she was 13 when her mother suggested she write to the great man for advice on how to become an artist. He was 70. Eventually he replied, formed a friendship that was part uncle and niece, part mentor and pupil.

and in 1976 when he died of pneumonia, aged 88, he bequeathed his entire �300,000 estate to her, together with a substantial collection of hs own paintings - themselves worth a fortune. The �106 million arts centre, The Lowry, opened in Salford Quats in 1999. Tate Britain has 23 Lowrys in its basement! KEY DATES Award - 1975 L.S Lowry was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Salford and the same degree by the University of Liverpool Award - 1967 L. S Lowry's painting- Coming out of school- was the stamp of the highest denomination in a series issued by the Post Office depicting great British artists Award - 1965 He was given freedom of the City Award - 1961 L. S Lowry was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from Doctors of Letters Award - 1945 L.S Lowry was awarded an honorary Master of Arts from the University of Manchester BIOGRAPHICAL CHRONOLOGY OF THE ARTIST 1887 Laurence Stephen Lowry born in Manchester, 1 November.

Only child of R. S. Lowry, an estate agent, and Elizabeth Hobson. The family lived in Rusholme, a suburb of Manchester. 1895-1904 Educated at Victoria Park School, Manchester. On leaving he attended the private painting classes of William Fitz in Moss Side, Manchester. 1904 Joined the firm of This. Aldred & Son, Chartered Accountants, 88 Mosley Street, Manchester, where he worked as a Clerk. 1905-15 Studied drawing and painting at the Muncipal College of Art, Manchester. 1907 Joined the General Accident, Fire & Life Assurance Corporation, 20 Cross Street, Manchester, as a Claims Clerk. 1910 Began work as a Rent Collector and Clerk with The Pall Mall Property Company Ltd., Manchester. 1915-20 Began to develop his interest in the industrial scene. During this period he also attended drawing and painting classes at the Salford School of Art, and continued to do so, infrequently, until 1925. His art school associations thus continued over a period of some twenty years.

1926-30 During this period he exhibited in open exhibitions in Manchester and at the Paris Salon. An Accident was bought by the City Art Gallery, Manchester. This was the first of his paintings to be acquired by a public art gallery. Commissioned to illustrate A Cotswold Book by Harold Timperley (Jonathan Cape, London, 1931). 1932 His father died. First exhibited at the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts. First exhibited at the Royal Academy. 1934 Elected a member of the Royal Society of British Artists. Lowry with the Stockport Viaduct Six of his paintings were shown in a mixed exhibition at the Arlington Gallery, London. 1938 Chance discovery by A. J. McNeil Reid who saw some of his paintings while visiting the framers, James Bourlet & Sons Ltd. 1939 First one-man exhibition at the Lefevre Gallery. He exhibited there on some thirteen occasions. Dwellings, Ordsall Lane, Salford purchased by the Tate Gallery. In October his mother died. 1941 An exhibition of the artist's work was presented at the City Museum and Art Gallery, Salford.

1943 One-man exhibition at the Bluecoat Chambers, Liverpool. 1945 Made Honorary M.A., University of Manchester. 1948 Elected a member of the London Group. Moes from Pendlebury, Salford, to The Elms, Stalybrudge Road, Mottram-in-Longendale, Cheshire, where he lived until he died. October: one-man exhibition at the Mid-day Studios, Manchester, where he exhibited regularly with the Manchester Group from 1946-1951. 1951 July-August: retrospective exhibition at the City Art Gallery, Salford. 1952 First exhibition at the Crane Gallery, Manchester. This gallery, under the direction of Mr. Andras Kalman, was the first commercial gallery outside London to show Lowry's work. Further exhibitions were held there in 1955 and 1958. Turning into the Crane Kalman Gallery, London, it showed his work on a number of occasions. Lowry is represented in the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Retired on Full Pension from The Pall Mall Company Limited, Manchester, with whom he began work as a Rent Collector and Clerk in 1910. At the time of his retirement he had risen to the rank of Chief Cashier to the firm. 1955 Made an Associate of the Royal Academy. An exhibition of his work held at the Wakefield City Art Gallery. 1959 June-July: retrospective exhibition at the City Art Gallery, Manchester. Exhibited, Robert Osbourne Gallery, New York. 1960 April-May: exhibition of drawings and paintings at the Altrincham Art Gallery. 1961 Made Honoray LL.D., University of Manchester. 1962 Elected Royal Academician. September-October: retrospective exhibition at the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield. 1964 In November, an exhibition in his honour was held at the Monks Hall Museum, Eccles. Twenty-five contemporary artists, including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Duncan Grant and John Piper, took part. The Halle Orchestra gave a special concert in Manchester to celebrate the occasion of his seventy-seventh birthday. 1965 June: received the Freedom of the City of Salford.

1966-7 Travelling retrospective exhibition organised by the Arts Council of Great Britain visited the Sunderland Art Gallery; the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; The City Art Gallery, Bristol; and the Tate Gallery, London. On 10 July 1967 the G.P.O. issued a Lowry stamp reproducing a mill scene. 1971 Exhibition organised by the Northern Ireland Arts Council in Belfast. From 1971 the artist lived quietly at Mottram making occasional visits to the Seaburn Hotel in Sunderland where he liked to stay for two or three weeks at a time. During this period he painted infrequently and showed mainly at the Royal Academy Summer exhibition, although he ws not represented in the 1975 Exhibition. 1975 Made Hon. D.Lit. by the University of Salford. Made Hon. D.Lit. by the University of Liverpool. 1975 On 23 February, 1976 the artist died at Woods Hospital, Glossop, in his 88th year. 1000+ images about L S Lowry on Pinterest | Seaside, Salford and Football match L.S.

Lowry ‘The Old House, Grove Street, Salford’, 1948 © The estate of L.S. Lowry See More Lawrence Stephen Lowry in Cumbria – Visit Cumbria Lawrence Stephen Lowry in Cumbria L S Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Old Trafford, Manchester (UK), on November 1st, 1887. He moved to Pendlebury in Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. Despite the inexorable link between Lowry and working class life, he did not grow up in poverty. He had few friends at school and passed no exams, but it was decided that he should enrol at Manchester School of Art which he did in 1905, for evening classes. He joined Salford School of Art for evening classes in 1915, which is where his work on the matchstick figures developed. He had his first job in 1904 where he ‘drifted into’ office work as a clerk with a Manchester accountant.

In 1910 Lowry took a job with a property company in Manchester as a rent collector, and stayed with them for the next 42 years. He spent much of his working life walking the poorest streets of Manchester and its surrounding area, and this is where his vision formed. Coming from the Mill, 1930 ‘Coming from the Mill’, 1930Lowry first exhibited in 1919 at Manchester Art Gallery. By 1945 Lowry had had 3 exhibitions and was starting to establish himself. By the 1950s the Royal Academy had invited him to join and his fame and success were assured. Lowry always claimed loneliness and dissatisfaction, but one wonders to what degree he really craved anything different. As he said himself, ‘Had I not been lonely, none of my work would have happened.’ He deprived himself of many of life’s simple pleasures – living in isolation – and the price he effectively paid to be a great artist was his happiness. ‘Floating Bridge, Southampton’ ‘Floating Bridge, Southampton’He did not just paint northern scenes, and visited the south coast looking for ships and ferries to paint.

He also painted a few pictures of London, including one of Piccadilly Circus, with his trademark ‘matchstick people’ wearing bowler hats and London fashions (sold recently for £200,000). By the early 1930s he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. He was awarded an honorary MA at Manchester University in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965 – many other honours followed later. He left Pendlebury in 1948 when the landlord re-possessed the house. He moved to Mottram-in-Longdendale, Cheshire, where he lived until he died in 1976. Lowry was buried in Chorlton Southern Cemetery, sharing the grave of his parents. A stone cross bears the simple inscription: “Also their beloved son, Laurence Stephen Lowry. Born Nov 1, 1887, died Feb 23, 1976.” The grave is now in a state of shabby neglect.

During his life Lowry had painted and drawn some 2000-3000 pieces. Harold Wilson had offered him a knighthood and had used ‘The Pond’ as his official christmas card in 1964. Lowry’s picture ‘Coming out of school’ was the highest value stamp in a series depicting great British artists in 1967. There was a long standing friendship between Lowry and Geoffrey Bennett (1902-1991), who were introduced by Lowry’s cousin Grace who worked with Bennett in Lancashire. The Bennetts moved to Cumberland when Geoffrey was made manager of the Westminster Bank in Cleator Moor . Lowry kept in touch with his friends and visited them in Cleator Moor, and later in Carlisle after Geoffrey was made an Angican clergyman in 1962. ‘Westminster Bank, Cleator Moor’, 1951.The bank where Geoffrey Bennett was the manager. ‘Cowles Fish and Chip Shop’ ‘Cowles Fish and Chip Shop, Cleator Moor’, 1948.One day in Cleator Moor, Lowry suddenly noticed crowds of people outside Cowles fish and chip shop, opposite the Westminster Bank.

He borrowed pastels belonging to Geoffrey’s son and set to work at once. The pastel drawing was sold recently for more than twice the value of the property itself. Bennett had an impressive collection of artworks, including these West Cumbrian Lowrys, and when he died these were left to the Dean and Chapter of Carlisle Cathedral, who sold them to raise funds to support the maintenance of the Cathedral. ‘Landscape with Figures, Workington’, 1969. The Remains of Jane Pit, at Moss Bay. LS Lowry | Artists Life | Era 1887-1920 Tweet 1887 - 1920 Victoria Park, as it was when Lowry moved there, aged 11. © Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council Laurence Stephen Lowry was born 1 November 1887 in Barrett Street, Stretford. His father, Robert, worked as a clerk in an estate agent’s office. His mother, Elizabeth, was a talented pianist.

By 1898 the family were living in Victoria Park, a leafy suburb in south Manchester, but in 1909 financial difficulties necessitated a move to Pendlebury, an industrial area between Manchester and Bolton. Lowry’s mother hated it, and so did Lowry, but, ‘After a year I got used to it. Within a few years I began to be interested and at length I became obsessed by it.’ After leaving school Lowry took a job as a clerk with a Manchester firm of chartered accountants, Thomas Aldred and Son. In 1910, after being made redundant from a second job, he became rent collector and clerk for the Pall Mall Property Company and stayed there until his retirement in 1952. As a child he had enjoyed drawing, and he used part of his income to pay for private painting lessons with the artists William Fitz and Reginald Barber. In 1905 he began attending evening classes at Manchester Municipal College of Art. His tutor in the life drawing class there was the Frenchman Adolphe Valette, who brought first-hand knowledge of the Impressionists, such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro to his classes.

‘I cannot over-estimate the effect on me at that time of the coming into this drab city of Adolphe Valette… He had a freshness and a breadth of experience that exhilarated his students.’ By 1915 Lowry had begun attending evening classes at Salford School of Art, based in the Royal Technical College on the edges of Peel Park. One of his tutors there, Bernard Taylor (art critic for the Manchester Guardian) advised Lowry that his paintings were too dark. In response, Lowry tried painting on a pure white background, a technique he was to retain for the rest of his career. Peel Park, and the views across it from the Technical College windows, appear regularly in Lowry’s work. He had begun to see the possibilities of painting what he saw on his doorstep, rather than more conventional landscapes based on the countryside nearby.

The best known story Lowry told of how he became interested in the industrial scene described how, after missing a train at Pendlebury station, he saw the Acme Spinning Company’s mill turning out, ‘I watched this scene – which I’d looked at many times without seeing – with rapture.’ 1903 Women’s Social and Political Union founded Emmeline Pankhurst, her daughters, and a small group of women fight for women's suffrage in Nelson Street, Salford 1903 first flight The Wright brothers make the first flight by a manned aircraft that flew under its own power 1918 GREAT WAR ARMISTICE An armistice is agreed between the Allied forces and Germany and fighting stops.

Nearly 950,000 men from countries across the British Empire have died, including 5,000 men from Salford who fought with the Lancashire Fusiliers Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ Box Office: 0843 208 6000 Groups Line: 0843 208 6003 Calls to 08 numbers will cost 7p per minute plus your network operator’s access charge. His Life and Career LS Lowry - His Life and Career Art School 1905 "If people call me a Sunday painter I'm a Sunday painter who paints every day of the week!" Lowry was always irritated by people who thought he was an amateur painter, self-taught and untutored. "Started when I was fifteen. Don't know why. Aunt said I was no good for anything else, so they might as well send me to Art School..." In 1905 he began evening classes in antique and freehand drawing. He was to study both in the Manchester Academy of Fine Art and at Salford Royal Technical College in Peel Park.

Academic records show him still attending classes in the 1920s. Lowry knew from his teachers - people like the Frenchman Adolphe Valette - how French Impressionism had changed the painting of landscapes and the modern city. He knew from exhibitions in Manchester what the current trends in modern art were, and deeply admired Pre-Raphaelites like Ford Madox Brown and Rossetti. Far from being a naïve Sunday painter, Lowry was an artist looking for his own distinctive way of painting and drawing - and for a subject matter he could make his own, preferring eventually the view from the Technical College window to that of the posed model. A Painter's Vision, 1920 In his early years Lowry lived in the leafy Manchester suburb of Victoria Park. Then lack of money obliged his family to move to Station Road, Pendlebury, where factory chimneys were a more familiar sight then trees. Lowry would recall "At first I detested it, and then, after years I got pretty interested in it, then obsessed by it." The subjects for his paintings were on his doorstep. In later life he recalled this as a sort of vision.

"One day I missed a train from Pendlebury - (a place) I had ignored for seven years - and as I left the station I saw the Acme Spinning Company's mill … The huge black framework of rows of yellow-lit windows standing up against the sad, damp charged afternoon sky. The mill was turning out... I watched this scene - which I'd looked at many times without seeing - with rapture..." An Appreciation, 1921 A writer in The Guardian newspaper, Bernard Taylor, recognised the real quality of Lowry's work, when he reviewed one of the artist's earliest exhibitions. "Mr Laurence S Lowry has a very interesting and individual outlook. His subjects are Manchester and Lancashire street scenes, interpreted with technical means as yet imperfect, but with real imagination... We hear a great deal nowadays about recovering the simplicity of vision of primitives in art. These pictures are authentically primitive, the real thing not an artificially cultivated likeness to it.

The problems of representation are solved not by reference to established conventions, but by sheer determination to express what the artist has felt, whether the result is according to rule or not..." The Industrial Scene late 1920s - 1930s Lowry worked as rent collector for the Pall Mall Property Company. He did not tell people about his work because he did not want them to think of him as a spare-time painter. His job led to him walking all over the city. What did he see? Children playing in the streets, people returning from work, going off to work, gossip on the front steps, incidents, market places and Whit-processions. But all this changed in his lifetime: blitz and rebuilding, slum clearances and new housing, changed the face of the city he had observed so well. "I saw the industrial scene and I was affected by it. I tried to paint it all the time. I tried to paint the industrial scene as best I could. It wasn't easy. Well, a camera could have done the scene straight off." Artist at Work Lowry felt that drawings were as hard to do as painting.

He worked the surface of his drawings by smudging, erasing and rubbing the pencil lines on his paper to build the atmosphere of the drawing. He was always doing quick sketches on the spot on whatever paper he had in his pockets. Lowry carefully composed his pictures in a painting room at home and took great care over placing each figure. Late in life he would sit before a canvas or board on his easel and not know what was going to be in the painting until he started working. He called them "dreamscapes". Bernard Taylor made the suggestion that helped Lowry to get into his painting the stark figures and the pallor of the industrial sky that he wanted. Taylor suggested he painted on a pure white background. Lowry experimented with layers of white paint on boards, leaving them for a time so the surface went creamy. Colour Lowry used a very basic range of colours, which he mixed on his palette and painted on the white background. "I am a simple man, and I use simple materials: ivory, black, vermilion (red), Prussian blue, yellow ochre, flake white and no medium (e.g. linseed oil). That's all I've ever used in my paintings. I like oils...

I like a medium you can work into over a period of time". Looking closely at the surface of Lowry's paintings shows us the variety of ways he worked the paint with brushes (using both ends), with his fingers and with sticks or a nail. Some paintings are painted over other images. The 1938 painting Head of a Man (Man with Red Eyes) when x-rayed showed a female portrait and possibly a self-portrait underneath. He was once asked what he did with his old suits. "Wear them", came the reply! He certainly wore them to paint in, wiping the brushes on his lapels and sleeves. Desolation Row 1930s - 1940s Lowry's father died in 1932. For the next seven years, his 73 year old mother became 'bed fast' and completely ruled her son's life. After her death in 1939, Lowry painted The Bedroom Pendlebury - in memory of those long hours he spent looking after her. She always demanded his attention. Lowry would only get to his painting room late at night after she had settled.

"She did not understand my painting, but she understood me and that was enough." These were years of isolation and growing despair, reflected in Lowry's paintings. They depict derelict buildings and wastelands as mirrors of himself. As an official war artist - himself emotionally blitzed - he drew the ruined shells of bombed-out buildings. In1939, the year his mother died - the person he most wanted to please - he tasted success with his first London exhibition. "After she died, I lost all interest." Continuing to paint was his "salvation". Private Man, Public Figure 1950s - 1970s Just when Lowry began to have success he was moving away from the subjects that everybody wanted him to paint. "Had I not been lonely none of my works would have happened". Some of his most powerful pictures are deserted landscapes and seascapes. Some of the most difficult pictures to like are of solitary figures and down and outs. "I feel more strongly about these people than I ever did about the industrial scene. They are real people, sad people. I'm attracted to sadness and there are some very sad things. I feel like them." Everything came too late for Lowry.

But his late years saw him become a popular celebrity. He also became preoccupied about whether his art would last. "Will I live?" he asked over and over again, like the art of the Pre-Raphaelites he collected and loved. From Childhood to Childhood 1976 "I painted from childhood to childhood." Lowry painted and drew into his old age - often protesting to interviewers that he had "given up", "packed it in". He died aged 88 in 1976 just months before a retrospective exhibition opened at the Royal Academy. It broke all attendance records for a twentieth century artist. Salford Museum & Art Gallery began collecting the artist's work in 1936 and gradually built up the collection which is now at the heart of the award-winning building bearing the artist's name, celebrating his art and transforming the cityscape again. Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ Box Office: 0843 208 6000 Groups Line: 0843 208 6003 Calls to 08 numbers will cost 7p per minute plus your network operator’s access charge.

Northern Art - Artists Northern Art Previous Next L. S. Lowry is unquestionable one of the most celebrated British artists and his unique contribution to recording the period, culture and landscape of industrial Salford and Manchester is without parallel. His work is a most distinctive and comprehensive record of the pre and post World War II Northern industrial town. Laurence Stephen Lowry was born in Rusholme, Manchester, in November 1887, the only child of Irish-born R S Lowry and Elizabeth Lowry (née Hobson). He attended a local school in Victoria Park, but took private lessons from William Fitz, before starting work as a clerk for a firm of chartered accountants in 1904. From 1905-1915 he attended drawing and painting classes at the Municipal College of Art, later Manchester College of Art, and now part of Manchester Metropolitan University, where he was tutored by Adolphe Valette. Lowry moved to Pendlebury in Salford with his parents in 1909, where he was to live for nearly 40 years. During this time he attended art classes at Salford School of Art, developing an interest in the urban and industrial landscape.

He exhibited with the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts from 1919, as well as entering paintings in the Paris Salon. By the early 1930s he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London. He was awarded an honorary MA at Manchester University in 1945, and Doctor of Letters in 1961, elected to the Royal Academy in 1962, and given freedom of the City of Salford in 1965. He lived in Mottram until he died in 1976 - a death marked by unprecedented homage by the 'ordinary people' of Manchester. Ben Kelly is a Macclesfield based artist. Ben Kelly was born in central Manchester in 1974. He is now nothing short of a phenomenon. Each exhibition he's held has sold out before opening and his main dealers have waiting lists running into three figures. No sooner is a painting finished than it finds a home. Collectors desperate for his work are paying more than double to buy his paintings on the secondary market.

He trained at London's renowned Central St Martins College, and despite his great success as an artist he still works as a senior art lecturer at a Midlands' university - this despite the pleas of his dealers that he should paint full-time. In 2006 his painting The Final Whistle beat over 800 entrants to win the prestigious Painting in Art Prize and £15,000 in prize money. The previous winner of this competition was L.S. Lowry in 1953 with his iconic painting Going to the Match. This set a new work record for a Lowry painting when it was bought by the PFA in 1999 for £1.9 million. Ben Kelly is a fanatical Manchester City supporter and he was artist in residence during the 2007/2008 season. During this period he produced a series of 30 paintings depicting a year in the life of the club at their home ground. A dream job. The completed works were shown in his Painting the Blues exhibition held at the club's museum in February 2009. A painting from this period was recently purchased by the National Football Museum, his first sale to a public collection.

His quirky figurative paintings always carry a narrative and quite often feature people, dogs and horses and gatherings of ordinary life. But to suggest they are simple paintings is to overlook his great technical skill, a fact recognised by his fellow artists. Ben's paintings are essentially about light and its play on everyday scenes. The way in which he fractures light in a complex series of paint layers is the defining and recognisable mark of his work. His oils are amongst the most technically accomplished of any artist practicing in Britain today. A recent show entitled Looters and Other Stories sold out weeks before its official opening and shows that the artist is not afraid to tackle subjects that others might shy away from. This extraordinary series of paintings examined the Manchester City Centre riots in 2011, deftly and with great humour. He seemed to see through the disorder to recognise that the riot was little more than one of the gatherings that he has spent much of his career depicting. He has also exhibited at the Lowry Centre, the Lady Lever Art Gallery, The National Football Museum and the University of Salford. He is in numerous private collections including that of the Turner Prize winning artist Mark Wallinger and the world-famous interior designer David Carter.

He is currently working on his largest one man show to date which will open at Clark Art Gallery in Hale on September 11th 2014. As well as northern scenes this exhibition will feature a series of paintings about the recent floods and new paintings of London and New York. There is already a huge waiting list for works in the show, it's definitely an exhibition not be missed. Arthur Delaney was born in 1927. He started to paint as a means of relaxation. There were two great influences in his life, one was the work of L.S. Lowry and the other the memories of the years he spent as a boy in the Manchester of the 1930's with it's smoke laden skies, rattling tramcars and gas lamps. Lowry's work made him aware of the many special qualities of the north and soon he began producing street scenes and industrial landscapes. Arthur Delaneys' paintings were not stylised but a true likeness to their location. He set out to capture the atmosphere of the 1930's and all of his paintings capture the nostalgia of the period. Geoffrey Key's acclaimed career as an artist spans five decades thus far.

He has built upon his early academic studies at the High School of Art and Regional College of Art in Manchester to achieve an important national and international status and reputation for his individual and diligent expression of form, light and colour. His work features in private, public and corporate collections worldwide including Salford and Manchester Art Galleries, Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong, Jockey Club of Hong Kong, Societe Roquefort, Chateau de St Ouen and Perrier. He has represented the UK in invited exhibitions in Europe and continues to be widely exhibited and collected; in recent times one-man shows have taken place across the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and the USA. His work has also been the subject of a number of published books and articles. Born in Salford in 1934, Harold Riley sold his first painting to the City Art Gallery when he was 11. At 17, he won a scholarship to the Slade and went on to study in Florence and Spain before returning to Salford, where he has lived ever since. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by the universities of Salford, Manchester, London and Florence.

His deep affection for his home town cemented a friendship with L S Lowry which began when Riley was a student. Together they worked on a project to record the area and its people, a project which Riley continued until the end of the twentieth century. Alongside this portrayal of ordinary working lives, Riley developed his reputation as a portraitist of the rich and famous. He has painted popes, American presidents and royalty. His sporting works, particularly golf and football, are also very sought after. John McCombs was born in 1943 and studied painting at St Martin's College of Art in London. His work is displayed in private collections all over the world and in the North West at Manchester City Art Gallery. John works mainly in oils, he paints both landscapes and figures. He concentrates on the Pennine landscape centred in and around the village of Delph in Saddleworth. Trevor Grimshaw was born in Hyde, Cheshire in 1947 and studied at the Stockport College of Art from 1963 to 1968. He developed a unique style working in oils charcoal and graphite to produce atmospheric, stylised images of the Northern industrial landscape, mainly in monochrome.

Grimshaw exhibited widely in the UK (including at the Royal Scottish Academy and the Royal Academy in the 1970's) as well as in the US and Germany. His work was included in the private collections of LS Lowry, Edward Heath, the Warburton Family and Gerald Kaufman. He is represented in a number of public collections, including The Tate Gallery, Salford Art Gallery, Stockport Art Gallery, Bury Art Gallery, Astley Cheetham, also Granada Television, North West Arts and the B.B.C. hold his work. He illustrated "The Singing Street", a book of poems by Mike Harding and executed a series of lithographs for Christies Contemporary Art. By the time of his tragic death, in a house fire in 2001, Grimshaw had become an alcoholic and a reclusive figure. He held his last show in 1996 and in 2004 a major retrospective exhibition was held at Stockport Art Gallery in celebration of his life and work. Roger Hampson was an important painter and printmaker of the post WW2 period.

He was born in 1925 and grew up in the working class village of Tyldesley, Wigan. Hampson's inspiration stemmed from his childhood and upbringing. Early experiences of clogs on cobbled streets, mines, factories and grey northern skies shaped the artist's values in life, beliefs which forged a signature for his art. Hampson was motivated to paint a landscape and way of life that he knew was fast disappearing. His paintings capture the bleakness of the northern landscape as well as the warmth and humour of its people. He died in 1996 aged 71 after suffering from Leukaemia. A book on his life and work entitled ROGER HAMPSON - a lost landscape was published in April 2009 to coincide with a retrospective exhibition at Gallery Oldham. Reg Gardner was born in 1948 in Prestwich, Manchester. At the age of 12 he won his first Art Competition in the Manchester Evening News and Chronicle. At the age of 14 he won a Scholarship to the High School of Art , Manchester. He continued to study art and to teach himself by observing the works of past masters in public galleries.

He exhibited first at the Colin Jellicoe Gallery in Manchester in 1969 and exhibited there many times over the next thirty years. Most of his one-man shows were sell-outs. Between 1973 and 1980 he exhibited at one-man and mixed shows at Stockport Art Gallery, Rivington Great House, Cancer Research Charity Show, attended by David Hockney, Manchester Academy, Chenil Galery, Kensington, London, the National Theatre, London, opened by Sir Ian McKellen, the Barbican Theatre, London and the Watermill Theatre, Hampshire. Since then, he has exhibited mainly with Colin Jellicoe Gallery, Manchester and with Dot Almond at the Great House, Rivington. Reg has an amazing ability to depict his native Manchester and the urban landscape of Lancashire in a warm, impressionist style that cleverly evokes a feeling of nostalgia. Tom Dodson was born in Salford, son of a labourer and eldest of five children. A typical working class Lancashire family in an age where hard times and humour often went hand in hand.

As a schoolchild the young Thomas Dodson was always top of the class in drawing and could often be found filling the pavements around his backstreet Ordsall home with chalk drawings of the local characters. But the North of England was a hard place where poverty ruled and art was for the rich. The three R’s were more important, so the young Tom forgot about his pencils and paints and, at the tender age of 14, left school and started working in the grocery trade. He learned all there was to know, and more besides, before moving on to curing and rolling bacon. There were other jobs in industry and up to his retirement Tom spent several happy years as a school caretaker. After Tom retired he had time on his hands. Soon his quick sketches gave way to more serious works and it wasn’t long before Tom found himself in artistic demand. Tom Dodson could recall with great clarity the images of childhood; images of the classroom, the scrapes and games, the gas lit corner shop, pumping the organ at St. Clement’s Church, the rousing bands at the Whitsuntide walks and the gruelling five mile trek to work. So many images, impressions and memories.

Tom Dodson didn’t ‘create’ a style, he didn’t have to. He painted naturally and his work is all the better for its lack of edge and affectation. Tom Dodson’s Lancashire scenes of the 1920’s and 30’s are a world away from those of his contemporaries. Tom may paint a mill or fairground, a backyard or a Lancashire slop stone, but in each and every one is a simplicity and down to earth observation combined with a vibrant energy and humour. When Tom’s first exhibition was held all those years ago, every work was bought within hours. Tom Dodson had arrived and with glowing praise from the art critics. Since then the enthusiasm and demand for this Lancashire artist’s pictures and prints has grown, as has his reputation. Tom painted the things he knew best. He has won a ready place in the hearts of his admirers, and for those who were fortunate enough to meet him they found an ordinary man. Translation

Question: In which city was L S. Lowry born?
Answer: Salford